Table 2.

Proposed reasons for employers not retaining workers with disabilities, ranked by the proportion of respondents expressing agreement

	Reason	Percent of respondents
		In agreement*	Strongly agree	Strongly disagree
1	They don’t know how to handle the needs of a worker with a disability on the job	82.1	21.9	2.2
2	They are afraid that workers who develop disabilities will become a liability to them	80.3	16.4	3.3
3	They are worried about the cost of providing reasonable accommodations so that workers with disabilities can do their jobs	79.8	24.2	2.5
4	They think that workers who are poor performers only get worse once they acquire a disability	72.1	11.9	2.8
5	They are worried about other costs, such as increased health insurance premiums	71.8	22.0	3.9
6	They can’t ask about a worker’s disability, making it hard to assess whether the person can still do the job	68.4	16.8	3.8
7	They believe that workers who develop disabilities can no longer do the basic functions of their jobs	65.1	8.8	4.7
8	They believe that workers who develop disabilities become less dependable	60.1	4.9	5.7
9	They are concerned about attitudes of co-workers toward the worker with a disability	47.4	6.3	5.7
10	They think of workers who develop disabilities as “problem employees”	42.2	4.5	7.4
11	They believe that workers who develop disabilities become less dedicated to their jobs	32.3	3.9	10.9
12	Workers who develop disabilities prefer not to return to work	31.6	2.4	17.3

Response categories were “strongly agree,” “agree,” “disagree,” and “strongly disagree.” Responses of “don’t know” are treated as missing and not included in the percentages

* Response is “strongly agree” or “agree”